In no particular order.
What are your personal favorite performances from actors who were under 25 at the time of shooting?
Christian Slater in Pump Up the Volume
James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause
And an obscure one: Elisha Cuthbert in The Quiet
Too bad this wasn’t “actors under 26”…otherwise I’d say Orson Welles in Citizen Kane has this one locked up rather well.
- Leonardo DiCaprio in This Boy’s Life. I’m not even much of a fan of his later work but I thought he was quite good in this.
- James Dean in East of Eden.
- River Phoenix in Stand by Me.
Marina Golbahari in Osama
For the US, it’s Linda Manz in Days of Heaven
Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People. He righteously won the Oscar for his performance.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Mysterious Skin. Amazing to think this was the same kid on “Third Rock from the Sun.”
Lina Leandersson, Let The Right One In
Daniel Day-Lewis was brilliant in “My Left Foot,” and I have no objection to him winning an Oscar. But you know, I thought Hugh O’Connor, who played the young Christie Brown, was at LEAST as good.
Same for Heath Ledger who just turned 25 when Brokeback Mountain started filming.
Haley Joel Osmont in The Sixth Sense. Kid looked haunted.
Is Traci Lords eligible here?
I was even more impressed with DiCaprio in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
I also loved him in The Lookout. I think he was a bit older than 25 in that one, though.
I was very impressed Natalie Portman in Léon (AKA The Professional.)
My dad always says the best child actor was Ron Howard and I’m inclined to agree with him.
He was hired for the show at around 5 and he was great. I don’t think he hammed it up, didn’t have trouble with his lines (atleast not from the perspective of the audience) and he played it real believable.
Ding ding ding, we have a winner. Exactly what I cam in here to say. She was simply amazing.
On the nosey! First one that came to my mind. He was terrific.
IMO he was merely “ordinary” in, and since Titanic.
Nuh-uh: River Phoenix in Dogfight. Lili Taylor in the same film as well.
And I hesitate to say this, because he was such an ass, even during filming, but Corey Haim in Lucas.
Judy Garland, The Wizard of Oz. What do I win?
For that matter, how about Shirley Temple . . . in every single thing she was in?